Paper-Strip-Heart Valentine

Valentine’s Day will be here in less than a month. This is a beautiful card that isn’t hard to make but looks it. For those of you not keen on the holiday it is still a great card for a birthday greeting, thank you or thinking of you card for someone you care about.  The heart is adapted from my friend and fellow crafter, Margaret Melsh – thanks, Margaret!

Supplies:

8.5″ x 5.5″ colored card stock, folded in half

card stock scraps

thin scrap paper – as a base for your paper strips

patterned paper – Double-sided paper is nice because it gives you two coordinating pieces. Optional: old sheet music and/or foreign language newspapers.

paper cutter

double-sided adhesive – I love Tombow permanent mono adhesive

heart-shaped punch – (mine is about 1 and 5/8 inches across)

~ or heart-shaped template (homemade is fine), pencil and scissors

pop-up adhesive dots

stamps, ink and other embellishments to complete the card

 

Cutting paper strips.

 

1. Using paper cutter, cut patterned paper into strips right around 1/4 inch wide, some a little thicker, some thinner.

Glue the strips to your thinner scrap paper.

2. Cover an area of your scrap paper with rows of adhesive, large enough for your heart shape.

3. Arrange the strips of patterned paper on the adhesive, edges touching, to make a solid section of paper big enough to fit the heart.  If you are making more than one card, you can cover a larger area and punch as many hearts as needed.

Have the opening of the heart facing you so you can see where to punch.

4. Punch heart from this paper.  Turn the opening of the punch up when you insert your paper so you can see right where you are punching that heart. If you are using a template, carefully draw around the template with pencil and cut out shape.  Set aside heart and complete the rest of your card.

5. Score and fold your 4.25″ x 5.5″ piece of card stock for the card.

6. Cut one piece of colored card stock, patterned paper or old sheet music or newspaper large enough to mat the heart. For the size of heart punch I use, my first layer is about 2 inches square.

7. Cut another piece of card stock a little larger to layer under the first piece – I make it a 1/4 larger on both sides. If you like, you can add another layer.

8. Adhere your layers to your card.

9. I like the heart to pop so I mount it using pop-up adhesive dots and adhere to the paper layers.

Voila! The finished card.

10. Stamp or write a greeting and add embellishments as desired to complete your card. Michaels 1$ bins are great for inexpensive stick-on rhinestones.

11. Be sure and sign the back of your beautiful handcrafted card.  I like to include a stamp that says “handcrafted”, my initials and the date.

12. I almost forgot the best part of all: send or deliver your card to your special sweetie!

Different papers completely change the look.

I wanted to use a Chinese newspaper for the background on the red card but couldn’t find one.  My work- around was to go here and put in the lyrics of a song and translated it into Chinese! Then I printed it out and used it for my background.

Make sweet mini cards with the hearts.

Stamps, ink, adhesive and some paper for this project are from Stampin’ Up!

Heart punch is from Paper Shapers.

Remaining paper is from my collection and could be from any of the following stores or sites: Paper Source, Scrapbook Territory, Joann, or  Michaels.

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